Tourists arrival posts sustained growth

Nepal received sustained South Asian arrivals to boost the total tourist arrivals by air in September.

According to the figures released here today by the Immigration Office at theTribhuwan International Airport (TIA), visitor arrivals in the month of September have increased by 20.6 per cent to 41,331 compared to the same month last year.

"The arrivals from South Asian region have shown robust growth of 49.1 per cent with Bangladesh (79.5 per cent), India (40.9 per cent), and Pakistan (43.9 per cent) while arrivals from Sri-Lanka have declined by 10.6 per cent," according to the data.

A sustained growth of 22.8 per cent has been observed in the arrivals from the South Asian region during the first nine months of 2010 in comparison to the same period last year.

Asia -- other than South Asian region -- has also continued to maintain the upward trend with double digit growth of 15.2 per cent in September. China -- emerging as the major tourist generating market for Nepal as usual -- has recorded the positive growth of 19.7 per cent.

Similarly, visitor arrivals from Malaysia (68.5 per cent), South Korea (52.1 per cent), Singapore (3.7 per cent) and Thailand (8.9 per cent) have also registered positive growths.

However, arrivals from Japan declined by 7.7 per cent compared to the same month last year, the data reveals.

Regarding the long-haul markets, Europe registered overall positive growth of 9.4 per cent with arrivals from Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark up by 33 per cent, 5.1 per cent, 8.4 per cent, 8.2 per cent and 45.1 per cent respectively. "The markets that could not show positive results in September were UK (-5.6 per cent) , Norway (-23.9 per cent)Switzerland (-4.6 per cent) and Czech Republic (-32.9 per cent)," according to the data.

However, a sustained growth of 16.9 per cent has been observed in the arrivals from the European region during the first nine months of 2010, in comparison to the same period last year.

The figures show increasing trend in the visitor arrivals from New Zealand with a growth of 38.5 per cent while Australia posted negative growth of 0.2 per cent. Likewise, the United States of America and Canada -- both the markets -- have registered positive growth of 7.4 per cent and 9.6 per cent respectively.

A total of 36,921 foreign tourists departed from TIA in September, while the number of Nepalis arrivals stood at 55,936 and 58,190 Nepalis departed from TIA in September.